


Cycle of Sacrifice

by JohnHHolliday (Methleigh)



Category: 19th Century US RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-21
Updated: 2012-05-21
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Methleigh/pseuds/JohnHHolliday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the true story of the Gunfight in the lot next to Fly's photography studio, as best as John can bear to tell it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Billy Leonard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I am a dentist, and Billy Leonard is my friend.

Once upon a time, I was a dentist.

It was in a small town, not in Nevada, but in New Mexico. Las Vegas. It was the last time I was a dentist, though I always claimed it as a profession. Dentistry was not as brutal as you think it, even in those days. There were so many ways to lessen and take pain from the patients. Fillings were gold, thin sheets of foil, patiently coiled and smoothed into cleaned cavities with tiny instruments. They were works of art, minute detailed sculptures, designed for comfort, for beauty, with as much perfection as one might offer. I was proud.

For these fillings I needed gold. I needed to melt gold, to mold it, to meld it, to create wires and sheets, and something called gold crystal, which compressed into cavities in some difficult cases. And I needed to make the moulds. There was much I needed to do.

Las Vegas boasted hot springs, to ease my breathing, my bones, to warm me in cold stages of fever, and it attracted others with my malady from across the country. And one of these men was Billy Leonard, a jeweller. He had need of a similar workshop, and we shared that and illness. He was from the South as I was and we shared the war and loss of country. We were both professionals – exiled gentlemen thrown into the violence and chaos of the wild west. And into the dry stark desert from the rich moist warmth of home.

Like me, he believed in his strength of will and morality beyond that of law. Like me, he was dying and we comforted one another through the ebbs and flows of illnesses and despairs. And we drank together, and talked. We played cards. We taught one another the techniques of our metalwork. We visited and saw the shows, we took dinner together. We laughed and coughed and sometimes wept.

Billy Leonard was my friend.


	2. Wyatt Earp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I meet Wyatt and at length he deems me worthy and brings me to Arizona in a covered wagon.

Friendship means more to me than anything. It is the virtue I hold highest. Loyalty.

Ill and so eventually discouraging to patients, I opened the Holliday Saloon, and due to disputes I eventually left Las Vegas. I despised the people I found around me. They despised me, and I was hot-headed enough to give them reason. I drank to excess then, thought to make a reputation, and sought to throw away my life. I had lost Mattie, my childhood love, I had lost my home and family, my profession – everything, and every chance. I thought. And Billy Leonard was my friend. We were of one mind. But it was I who was forced to leave. 

I found my way to Fort Griffin and fell in with Wyatt. I saw something better, some chance to live though I was dying, some chance to live for others and for a better world. _Right is Might_ we said, and I resurrected my lost intentions. Wyatt saved me, from myself and from Hell.  
  
Wyatt was a good man. He was brave; he was diligent, inventive, thoughtful. He always wanted the best and strived to be the best. He ignored fear. _Nulli Virtute Secundus_ \- In Virtue Second to None. I revived my family motto under his influence. I worked hard for his friendship. I talked to him – my words flowed like water. I stood by him; stood for him; protected him with my guns. He went unarmed through Dodge City. And eventually, he saw that I was serious, that my intent was pure, that my loss of myself had been replaced by service rather than nihilism. I saved his life, and then again, I had family, closeness, conversation, home. I saved his life and he had saved mine.

If I could not live for something, I could be prepared to die for something. Wyatt was trying to cleanse the West, trying to make peace of the last battlefield of the Civil War. ‘Cowboys’ were never about high spirits and exuberance. They were about premeditated vengeance. And I suppose, until Wyatt, I was as well. We had lost the war, lost everything, and if we could not touch the carpetbaggers, we could destroy the rich Northerners in the lawless west. But Wyatt wanted peace and the future, for families. He was like me. It was not for us. Such as we had no place in his new world, but we could help to build it – schools and churches, policemen on the corner, water for the towns, volunteer fire departments. And where would we be, he and I? They hated me - my cards, my whiskey, my cough, my love, my guns, even my soft accent. And Wyatt was restless, with dreams of independence.

I could make Wyatt laugh, like few others, and he grew slowly to prize me. Even me. He did not drink, was calm, reasonable, thoughtful, compassionate and yet adventurous. And his brothers became like my brothers. I was in many ways more like Morgan. It was with him that I could drink and risk and run. He was older than I too. In some ways he was the older brother I had wanted. Wyatt was closer than a brother, but Morgan was exactly like one. If I had a wicked air of pride and wildness when I killed, if I was glad I was free and wielded a sword of judgement and laughed at my power and intent, it was Morgan who fed that. Morgan who, unlike Wyatt, drank with me. If I had not been so fragile I am sure we would have wrestled and vied with one another. It was with him that I would sing the modern songs in those days, my voice true and tenor and his deeper, breaking with amusement. And he was thoughtful too, religious. In the morning we could talk of the possibilities of mind and spirit. He was always reading. Wyatt gave me a brother. And I had company at Christmas. Newton I was not permitted to meet. James was kind but distant. Virgil was deep and rich. He laughed, but had an air always of a favourite uncle, perhaps. I admired him, but we were not close. And Warren was younger than I, wild and resentful. Perhaps he was too young, but thought himself too old to have much regard for me. They were the Earps.

And I fell in with them to save myself from pure outlawry, to civilise the vista of the West, and because Wyatt was a great man and had method and schemes. It was exciting too, to be included, to plan, to dream sky castles. Wyatt’s dreams were always grand, and he always pursued them so wholeheartedly it seemed impossible that they should fail.

And Wyatt was true to me, as I was true to him. All his life he defended me against all comers, and there were many. If I held my life before him, he held his word and reputation before me.

We met, and we rode the storms together, back to back, shoulder to shoulder. And I was an outlaw _and_ a lawman.

Eventually, he left Dodge for Arizona. Riding behind him on the trail on a fast horse to his leisurely wagons, I came upon him alone, far from any town. And he brought me in his covered wagon to Prescott. We were going home. A geographic home. He would have a stage line, and I could work with him, hold his back and we could gamble too. Sporting men, and maybe settled, quiet, I could be a dentist again if I were well enough. That long quiet trip was one of the best experiences of my life. The air was dry, simple and warm. I was relaxed. The company was easy and close. The stars were clear at night, growing to such numbers one could feel their infinity. And we had fires in the evening. There were biscuits for breakfast, and small things gave us pleasure. And I talked and talked and talked, freely with no censor. I puzzled and wondered, told stories, told the truth, described the things I had loved, explained dentistry and the way my mother had taught me to speak. Unending. That trip was beautiful, the faster horses nodding slow, tied to the back of the buckboard, the others with their necks rising and falling, the rhythm relentless and friendly. Time stretched till it scarcely existed, and I grew healthier. And we were going home. Wyatt was bringing me home.

Then it was Prescott, where the other boys joined us, and then I followed them all to Tombstone. Yes, Tombstone.


	3. Tombstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I arrive in the portentous Tombstone and we meet the villains of the piece.

Tombstone. If Ed Schieffelin did not find his grave as was predicted when he first prospected for the fabulous silver-strike, there were good men who did, and the town was aptly named.

It was a child's fistfuls of bare board and adobe buildings, along with a few more opulently appointed establishments. These had been tumbled onto the seemingly endless desert that indifferently featured mountains, washes and valleys, punctuated occasionally by vague landmarks and springs, some of which were alkali, and inhabited by rattlesnakes, and the odd itinerant or Apache. It was so dry a whisper would blow dust to coat your cheeks and eyelashes. A whisper. It was frequently windy and one alternately burned and froze, fever aside. In short, it was healthy, even gradually cauterising, though I was grateful for the filter of my mustache.

I waited a time in Prescott, as I was doing... well... at the tables. I came to Tombstone marvelously wealthy for those days. And as news traveled fast on the western sporting circuit, I was soon cursed and haunted by Kate. I came in on the Sandy Bob stageline with Bud Philpott driving and Bob Paul, Wyatt's friend, riding shotgun. The former was a friendly easy man with a long family and long gentle stories. He would sing sometimes and surely shortened and warmed the journey. I rode on top with him and Paul because it pleased me to practice shooting as we drove. Kate rode inside.

By the time I arrived Wyatt and his brothers had already settled into our usual occupations and lawmen, saloon-keepers and sporting men. I set to dealing Faro at the Alhambra, resplendent with Brussels carpets, all the equipment of mahogany and ivory, and a stuffed Bengal tiger behind the bar. The Earps had found two stagelines already operating out of Tombstone and no room for a third.

Wyatt deputised me, which allowed me to carry a gun in town. This was so that I could back him and protect myself. There was need for these things because there existed in the territory certain gambling elements we had fought elsewhere because they were enemies and political rivals of our friend Luke Short in Dodge City, back when we were lawmen in Kansas. Politics, in those days, seemed to involve wars of bitter feuds, gunplay, court proceedings, and legalised killings. These gamblers were allied with a gang of ruthless rustlers, hold-up artists and murderers under one Johnny Behan, a small cowardly treacherous but politically canny man of unclear profession. The gang had been cowboys out of Texas. The term was derogatory then - 'cow boys' as opposed to 'cattlemen.' As I said, they were taking vengeance for the loss of Civil War, though some were young enough to have still been tiny children when the war ended and had less reason for rage than I did. They raided, killed and stole with free rein across the territory and into Mexico, terrorising decent citizens and truly honest ranchers, protected by the petty and corrupt politician Johnny Behan.

My old comrade Billy Leonard had migrated, for the sake of the Tombstone silver boom, to The Wells, a small community in the hills. And he ran with the cowboys.

I visited him often, and his roommates, riding out of town and staying overnight. We resumed our friendship and conversations. And I backed Wyatt as a lawman in Tombstone. He hunted criminals and I helped him, always ready, always proud. I played cards and enjoyed the friendship of such men, never exchanging information of ne'er-do-wells, never exchanging information of their pursuit. Wyatt knew me and respected what he knew to be my conviction and my honour. I am nothing if not loyal. To death, as it turned out.


	4. Things Fall Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I am generally reviled, Billy Leonard robs a stage, Behan tries to murder me, and Wyatt and I rid ourselves of Kate. Forever.

I was generally reviled by both camps.

I worked for peace, order and safety, as always the good citizen, treating ladies gently and men squarely, fighting natural and unnatural emergencies. I worked with Wyatt and indeed Virgil, who were as generally regarded as the town’s salvation. Nevertheless, my presence was considered a blight.

I was an insouciant Southerner with my softer accent, occasionally still marred by a slight hiss from my cleft palate. I was ill, coughing and shaking, taken by fever and weakness at what were often inconvenient times. Though tuberculosis is not contagious, it was mentioned by _some_ that it was unseemly to show myself. I drank for ease, for companionship, for steadiness, or for some small measure of peace. I was a gambler, dealing Faro, sitting for days at poker and, unforgivably, _winning_. There was Kate, who was apparently my consort but more closely resembled a proverbial millstone. She had saved my life in Fort Griffin and it was thus my duty to humour her, as a gentleman, though she was a perfidious whore, as you will see – not that _I_ would or should condemn anyone for her profession. I was an associate of Billy and his friends. As if all this were not enough, I was unapologetic, proud, courteous and intelligent. I was not to be borne by ‘decent citizens.’ I was not welcome even at church, which ought to have been doing its best to save my soul.

To the cowboys, on the other hand, I was a Southerner who rode with Wyatt against Texans and therefore a traitor. I was a former outlaw associating with present outlaws and thus a probable spy, and though my words and reputation should have told them otherwise, they were suspicious. I had rights they did not have, as a lawman, and because with guns and Wyatt’s protection I was to some degree untouchable, they scorned me as a cheat hiding illegitimately behind the law. I was, again, a successful sporting man and more than competent with guns and knives, which only made them jealous, as did the fact that I was truly a gentleman. And of course anything I had I did not deserve. 

I was therefore universally hated, but still I held my head erect, continued in all of my chosen activities, maintained my friendships and remained a useful citizen. If it is not easy as a child to hear whispers and taunts from every mouth; to be jostled and assaulted as one walks; to feel eyes watching with hostility and turn to meet them; to be excluded from all companionable gatherings; to be threatened constantly, directly and indirectly, how much worse is it as an adult to suffer that, when one is all one will ever be and there is no chance to show them all, or to seek out a community of kindred people, or to escape to something better?

Of course the inevitable occurred.

Billy held up a stage carrying a Welles Fargo strongbox of silver with his friends King, Head and Crane. Bud Philpott was killed, or I should say rather that they killed Bud Philpott. I still do not know if they were trying to kill Bob Paul for political reasons. He had traded places on the seat with Bud, and the stage was robbed at twilight. I would have stopped it if I had known. But perhaps they would not have told me, knowing I would have to do so.

Because they were so often present, I always saw conspiracies. I had been told that day that there was a high-stakes poker game in Charleston, and I was out in the hills, for when I arrived there was neither game nor rumour of game. I rode back, I thank God, with the water wagon, tying my horse to the backboard.

It was still early when I arrived back, and I dealt Faro until I heard the news. Paul had ridden the runaway stage into Contention, the next stage stop, climbing bravely onto the tongue to retrieve the reins. He had wired Wyatt from there. Bud’s body had been tossed out and dragged from the hold-up site, a difficult dip and bend at the beginning of a slope. There was a passenger who had been shot too, from behind – Pete Roerig. I did not know him. I rented another horse and tied it outside to the rail to be ready when Wyatt called for me, but the call did not come and when morning came I retired.

Wyatt knew, I think, that it was my comrade who was implicated, and he surely knew that if that were the case my loyalty would be hopelessly divided. He did not ask it of me – did not ask me to choose. I owed him any aid I could give, and I owed Billy my protection. In the morning they were gone. 

In any case, had I been on that manhunt, I would have died. Conspiracy! I still believe that Behan and his minions tried to lead Wyatt and his posse away from the hold-up men. I still believe that they tried to kill them out on the desert by denying them food, water and horses. But all were strong men and they _came back_. Bob Paul’s horse had died under him out there and so had Virgil’s. They had been on the desert _sixteen days_ without extra food or water, all told, though Behan’s men could have brought it to them and did not. Had I been there, weak and ill as I was and am, I would have perished.

Wyatt and his posse managed to capture one of the men – King. That was the reason for their difference in location from Behan and his men. They sent King back under the custody of Behan, which he claimed he had right to. Instead of putting the man in jail, they put him up in the house of… oh, a man on the posse, who just happened to be oh, the editor of the newspaper in Behan’s pocket. He rode away on a horse mysteriously waiting at the back porch for him. Mysteriously. Though that was not the account in the newspaper.

In the meantime, Behan and company had cooked up the kind idea of blaming the hold-up on me. If they could do so, it would ruin me for good, perhaps even kill me if they could arrange a corrupt trial. And through me they would finish Wyatt’s career as a lawman, leaving the cowboys free to pillage and murder with no hand against them, and Behan himself to profit therefrom. And they held to their plan, spreading further libelous rumours about town. Disliked as I was, they were believed.

Wyatt did his best on his return to squelch these. He always spoke for me and believed in me. Always, whatever the cost. But in two weeks the lies had become entrenched in popular opinion. I knew there was nothing I could say. My only word on the subject was that had I attempted to rob the stage I would have shot the horses and actually taken the strong-box, which the true thieves had not managed to do.

Kate, meanwhile, was whoring around town with the cowboys. My fortunes, at least in terms of cachet, had fallen. Behan’s boys were rising stars. One night he hired her, cajoled her, and appealed to her new shame as my former associate. She had always hated me – it was only duty that required I take her in again and again. She berated me constantly and sometimes beat me – I was too weak to physically defend myself and could not shoot her. She was, as I say, a curse. I cannot fathom why she insisted upon haunting me beyond my occasional wealth.

Behan convinced Kate to sign an affidavit stating that I had known of the hold-up and had participated in it. This was her way of ridding herself of me – bringing me to hang and die. She had the intent of murder. It was generally thought, even by some of Wyatt's friends, that I _had_ shot Bud and the passenger, so a trial was called, the only evidence being Kate’s document. Wyatt sobered her up meantime, and she was convinced to swear that she had not to her knowledge signed such a paper, and that it was not the truth. Somehow he managed to nudge some tiny grain of honour within her. And Mr. Fuller, with the water wagon, attested that I had been with him on the night in question.

The scandal was causing Wyatt a loss of goodwill. He needed that as marshal, and as a political man, and for his own reputation, then and forever. My reputation was destroying his good name. 

After the trial I stood on the steps, brave but empty, sorry beyond words. I offered to go, if it would help him. All my world and the fragments of my hope would be over once again, given up. The small measure of love and family I had would be gone, traded for cold honour again. “Do you want me to leave town?”

“No,” he said, and if he did not already own my heart and soul, he would have earned it there again. “But get rid of that fool woman.”

I did so. Wyatt and I each put in $500 to give her. $1000 to leave town and never to trouble me again. And she left, forever.

It was not the end of the story, though. That was barely the beginning. A prelude.


	5. The Pivot Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a massacre or three, Wyatt strikes an unwise deal with Ike Clanton who naturally betrays everyone, and the stage is set for the famous gunfight.

Tensions ran high that summer. We were always alert. It was a violent time.

Behan was sheriff and the cowboys ran wild. There were countless incidents. Worst of all was their slaughter of an entire mule train of Mexicans transporting silver through Rattlesnake Canyon. They dressed as Apaches, thinking to deflect their shame by further compounding it. Every man was killed, save a boy who escaped back across the border to Mexico. The only ranchers able to hold against them were John Slaughter and John Hooker, who had enough tough and loyal men to protect their ranges from the wholesale rustlers the cowboys had become. The source and sale and price of beef was almost a running joke in the newspapers. And there were the hold-ups still of the silver and payrolls to and from the mines. I cannot begin to enumerate the rate of crime or the legitimate fear that good honest hard-working men held for their lives, livelihoods and families. In addition to such organised crime, they would drink and fight amongst themselves or with others for sport, threatening anyone in the vicinity.

And they hated us because we stood up to them. Even alone, Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan, who were the lawmen, and even Jim, who had the saloon, were constantly faced with jeers and threats of the murder and destruction of all they held dear. And I too. Wyatt bid me stay my hand, or I never would have stood to accept such things. It was a kind of pride – to stand nonchalant and utter bland conversational denials to the increasing menacing confrontations. I would have killed them outright for saying such things, insulting our honour and threatening our lives and the lives of those we loved. But Wyatt was more subtle, more far-seeing, cooler, with plan and purpose. He believed political office would give him power to break the cowboys, and his word was my bond, in that it bound me. I was still and cool. Wyatt was head of the Citizen’s Committee to fight the cowboys. They would not have me.

Still regarded with loathing and suspicion, I walked the streets bearing the malevolence of all. And it harmed Wyatt too, surely for my sake – it outraged him to see me innocent and so vilified – but also now for himself and his brothers. Everyone blamed me for the Philpott murder and botched stage robbery still – Wyatt’s friends and Wyatt’s foes, though some of the latter knew the truth and were concocting the tale, making it worse with each telling, and throwing Bob Paul, Wyatt, Morgan, and even Williams, the Wells Fargo man into the plot to take the stage. 

I did not know it then, but Wyatt had a plan to arrest the true robbers and clear our names, especially mine, which was in most jeopardy. Even before the trial, he had set what he believed would be a trap. Billy Leonard was my friend and still at large. He would need to be captured and Wyatt left me from his plan for the sake of my loyalty.

He made a deal with a cowboy named Ike Clanton to betray them and bring them in. Ike was a near-cretin, as far as I was concerned, treacherous and if he had been even slightly cleverer he would have been villainous. As it was, he was essentially a worm, albeit one with a bullhorn. I despised him. He was both stupid and uncontrollable, and unjustifiably swaggering and boastful at the same time. His father had the largest spread of the outlaws, and they were a lawless and relatively powerful family, in their way.

Wyatt made a deal with Ike Clanton for the head of my friend.

The deal was that Ike would lure Billy, along with Head and Crane, who were hiding out on a ranch just into New Mexico, to come out of hiding to rob another rich stage with him and the McLaury brothers. Then Wyatt could capture them and give Ike and company the Wells Fargo reward, which was $3600. And they would clear my name and with it his, and he would be a hero. Ike and his cronies were cowards as well as traitors though, and wouldn’t try to capture Billy and his friends themselves. They were afraid, as they should have been, of their own comrades killing them in turn.

Ike had Wyatt send for a telegram confirming that Wells Fargo would pay the money for Billy and co. ‘alive or dead,’ because of course he was hoping they would be dead and therefore easier to bring in. He was hoping my friend and his would be dead. Williams was the Wells Fargo man and he received the telegram to give to Wyatt.

The deal never came to fruition. The cowboys were trying to steal some land from some brothers named Hazelett that they wanted for another ranch. They went up to kill them – Billy and Head among them, but the Hazletts fought back and both were killed. The cowboys came down then and killed the Hazletts in revenge, raining bullets down on them in a silver storm until they were both shattered. Crane was killed along with Ike’s father and a great many other cowboys rustling cattle up from Mexico. Some Mexicans had killed them in reprisal for the Rattlesnake Canyon massacre. Of course the cowboys then killed fourteen Mexicans in exchange for that. They would have killed Ike had they known he was a traitor.

One would have thought that with the deaths of the stage robbers that it would have been over. And for Wyatt it was. He would never extract confessions or clear our names in that way after they all were dead. But it was not closed. Ike Clanton was a quaking coward, yet treacherous as he was, he could expect no better from others.

Ike was afraid and, as I say, almost a cretin. He had a secret now – that he had made a deal with the enemy. So, instead of keeping it close, as Wyatt did, who would have had nothing to lose by its divulgence, he came to many people, drunk, and asked them if they had been told of his secret. Virgil was the first of these. He had not heard of it, but of course Ike told him everything. He was not pleased to learn of it, as indeed I would have been worried as well. The second person he spoke to was Williams, the Wells Fargo man who was also drunk. And Williams apparently told that he had requested the confirmation telegram of the reward for Wyatt. I am usually drunk myself, so it may seem disingenuous to criticise them, but a gentleman can hold his liquor, and I never told a secret drunk or sober.

I myself spent a great deal of time out of town on the circuit. Wyatt was home and Wyatt was in Tombstone, but my presence truly did harm him, despite his generosity and forgiveness at the courthouse. The summer passed and most of autumn. There was a festival just over the line in Mexico, and I went down at the end of September with Morgan. Travel took a great deal more time then, and we stayed afterwards in Tucson and Benson, for cards were good and we worked well together. Almost brothers, as I said.

Alighting from the stage October 22, Wyatt was waiting for us, which was no surprise as we had telegrammed that we would be returning. But at his side was Ike Clanton, an enemy and idiot. And that was surely unexpected.

Without preamble Wyatt asked, “Did I ever tell you that Ike Clanton and I were in a deal together?”

“No,” I replied, completely mystified.

“Ike says I did.”

Thereupon Ike, incredibly, told me about their deal, assuming still that I knew, and that I approved, close as Wyatt and I were. Somehow he managed to overlook the fact that what he was telling me was that he had traded for my friend’s head. He hadn’t the wit to think of my own loss and mourning, with which Wyatt had been gentle, or to anticipate that I might react. And of course he didn’t just say it, but added bull-headed belligerence, threats and accusations, heaping them on my head.

He said I had told the cowboys. He said I was laughing at him all along. He said Wyatt had no intention or honouring the deal. He said Wyatt and Virgil and Morgan and Jim and Williams and Bob Paul and I and were all in it together against him. He may have also mentioned Shibell, the territory marshal and Gospers, the acting-governor, with whom I had lived in Prescott. Blood was singing in my head by this time as any one statement would have been unforgivable, and I cannot clearly remember every word. He said that if any of us tried to pin the betrayal on him or put it about town that he had been involved, he would kill us all. When he said he was nobody’s fool I went for his throat. Figuratively, for Wyatt’s sake.

I told him just what a low coward he was, treacherous, stupid ignorant, uncontrollable and worthless, how full of air he was, exactly how much less than human he was. I tore him to pieces, in vicious intense tones. I was controlled, unlike Ike, and it was plain and clear. I swore, as I never had before, and that is saying something. I laughed his threats to scorn and let him know I could kill him as easily as look at him, but for Wyatt. A full fifteen minute diatribe for all to hear, enumerating his worthlessness, stupidity and treachery, colourful, scurrilous, as Wyatt said, and well-articulated, though I say it myself. He started to yell, back-pedal and protest still swearing death and dismemberment to me and mine. As well as his condemnation, at which I could only laugh. And I did laugh, long and cruelly, shaming him in front of all the town.

The scene was repeated at the Alhambra lunch counter on October 26 where Morgan and I were taking our evening meal. I was disinclined to stand for such abuse from the likes of him. And he had, with all intent, meant to kill my friend. I finally lost patience and went for him, but he was unarmed and of course a coward. Morgan held me off. But weak and frail as I am, I was a laughable threat also, albeit a game one. Virgil came out of the Occidental at the commotion, and Wyatt explained that I did not want to fight but only explain I had not been party to any of his schemes, whereas Ike was threatening me but unarmed. Virgil understood perfectly. We separated, Morgan went home, and Wyatt and I to our respective Faro tables.

Later Ike sought Wyatt out again and again reiterated his intention to kill me, and all the Earps. Such conversations were nothing new and Wyatt took it as seriously as he usually did, calmly and with disinterest and contempt, gathering information. Ike bothered him at his game until ironically going to join Virgil where he was playing poker in the Occidental Saloon with Behan and Tom McLaury to keep an eye on them. 

It was my custom to retire about four and arise at noon, going out at two, so in the morning, after the Faro games, Wyatt met me and walked home together.

The next day was October 26, 1881, when we would meet in gunfire outside Fly’s photographic studio. And men would die. And everything would turn on that pivot – all our lives and reputations.


	6. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I briefly muse on the nature of sacrifice.

Why do I say ‘Sacrifice?’  
It is an equation.  
Everyone has something they hold highest – something for which they will do anything. Aware or not, everyone has a hierarchy within him. For most, the pinnacle position is held by their lives. Thus the old hold-up equation _Your money or your life._ Most would hand over the money. It is sacrifice of one thing for another. This is the reason that Wells Fargo employs men like Wyatt, like Morgan and like Bob Paul. They hold loyalty and pride higher than _threatened_ loss of life. They calculate equations second by second as shotgun barrels near or turn infinitesimally away; as fingers move from triggers or tense around them; as an eye looks aside or narrows to aim. Such men are weighing the moment when duty becomes folly and threat becomes probable death. No stage was ever successfully robbed with Wyatt riding shotgun, so that turning moment never arrived because he would, even at that point, have gambled on the faulty aim of any highwayman. But if he had died that way, it would have been a sacrifice of life for duty.

I had lost my life already. But there was something I still held highest. Even such as Bat Masterson and Fred Dodge, who essentially despised me, could see it as clearly as if I shouted it to everyone I met. To quote them both: _Sterling loyalty to his friends was the single tenet of his perverted creed._ And perhaps it was at this that they were looking in hindsight: I sacrificed, in that tension-filled and dangerous time, the peace, safety and reputations of Wyatt and his brothers for the memory of Billy Leonard. My friend. It was not vengeance, but my holding above everything else my own honour - my duty to stand by Billy, even deceased, even desperate as he had been in life.

Causality is a complex web beyond our ken. The simple action of goading Ike and heaping proverbial burning coals upon his pathetic head over his betrayal of Billy cost me everything. Yet I could have done nothing else. Is that why Bat called me selfish? Because I had no regret? Though Morgan lost his life and we lost the infinitely precious wisdom, companionship and joie de vivre that was Morgan; though Virgil lost his arm; though Jim’s Hattie lost her sweetheart, even unworthy as he was; though Wyatt lost his good name and the solid surety of his feet set on the path of law; though I, even I who had who had so little, lost my friend, my latter family, my freedom and any lingering hopes I had of a sense of home. Did Bat call me that because I still kept my head erect; still averred I had done my best? Because I refused to lose that tiny grain of virtue by refraining from a single action; because I would not sacrifice _that_ but held it in balance against all else?

 _Ultimately_ , we cleansed the territory. And the murders and hold-ups, the rustling and thieving were over. And the fear that paralysed and brought low the genuinely honest ranchers was broken.

We killed and killed, and Morgan died, and what we lost was incalculable. 

I still do not apologise. I still do not regret my actions. Even looking back at everything I wrought, I cannot see that, given what I knew at the time, I could have honestly done anything else. I do not regret. But I mourn.


	7. The Fremont Street Fiasco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I can't bear to relate the events of that terrible day, again.

I don't really wish to give a sequential account of that day. It has been done and done again. I am told it is re-enacted each year. To glorify sorrow, I suppose. To cast blame upon us over and over. Nevertheless, it needs to be addressed, so here are a series of facts to the best of my memory. Thirty seconds move very quickly. And they changed everything 

1\. I whistled as we walked down the street. Dixie. I am proud I can whistle.  
2\. I walked next to Morgan. Morgan told me, "Let them have it." I answered, "All right."  
3\. I traded my cane to Virgil for a shotgun, so he wouldn’t look so threatening.  
4\. When I shot Tom McLaury with the shotgun pointblank I thought it had not worked and threw it away in disgust.  
5\. I did not shoot or draw first. I did not even take out the revolver until I had thrown away the shotgun.  
6\. Addie Bourland recognised me but not the Earps. I had helped her in the town-site war. She was Josie’s friend.  
7\. Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury fired first. Then Wyatt.  
8\. Frank Clanton’s bullet grazed my hip.  
9\. It was only thirty seconds and it is all people remember of my life.  
10\. Afterwards Josie came to Wyatt on a wagon so hurried she had forgotten to wear a bonnet.  
11\. I was sleeping during all the events of the morning and only rose in time for the gunfight itself.  
12\. Wyatt said, “This is our fight. There’s no call for you to mix in.” I answered, “That’s a Hell of a thing to say to me.” But he was trying to protect me.  
13\. Frank said before he shot me, “I’ve got you, you son of a bitch.” I said, “You’re a Daisy if you have.” And I killed him. Morgan killed him at the same time.  
14\. Morgan was hit high in the back, very near his spine. Virgil was hit in the leg.  
15\. Behan or Claibourne was shooting at us from the photography studio. I fired at them and whichever of them was firing ceased. Cowards.  
16\. Ike behaved in typical Ike fashion – starting everything then running away. I tried to shoot him but I was too late.  
17\. At the end of the fight, our guns were all empty.  
19\. The vigilante committee, led by Wyatt’s friend Clum, was coming up the street afterwards and we all thought it was the outlaws, for nerves and dust. And our guns were empty.

That wasn't even the end. So much happened afterwards. So much blood and death and loss. The gunfight was merely a pivot. To me, everything happened before and afterwards.


End file.
